Five More Minutes
by StillNotGinger10
Summary: As Ed turned back to the bed, he thought that, words or no, he was just as happy with Roy as Al was with Mei. AU where your soulmate's thoughts about you are written somewhere on your body, constantly changing to form new words as your soulmate's thoughts change.
1. Chapter 1

Five more minutes.

In five more minutes he'd get up and get ready, but for now, for five more minutes, Ed would let himself be hugged by the sleeping octopus that answered to 'Roy' during the day. At night, once asleep, Roy turned into a mess of limbs that wound around Ed, squeezed him, hugged him, clung and wouldn't let go. And Ed loved every minute of it.

So he'd give himself five more minutes.

Then he'd try to find a way out of the arms wound around his waist and the legs tangled with his own. Roy's head rest on Ed's chest, and Ed took the opportunity to run his fingers through the black hair, brushing it, playing with it in a soft, gentle way that he only did when Roy was too distracted, or tired, or unconscious to comment.

Roy shifted, his arms tightened before relaxing again, his legs settled more, one nudging Ed's automail. They'd managed to regain Al's body and Ed's arm, but not Ed's leg. Despite what Al may think, Ed considered it a win.

Al was too focused on the fact that Ed no longer had his left foot. As far as Ed was concerned, his foot had always been blank, and he'd lived a perfectly good life without seeing his words. He'd continue to do so for the rest of his life.

When Ed was a kid, he'd had a solid black line across the top of his foot, just waiting to be replaced with the thoughts of his soulmate. But he'd lost his foot before he'd ever met his soulmate. Before his soulmate had had a single thought about him for Ed to see written across his skin. If he'd met them since gaining the automail, he didn't really care. He didn't need their thoughts.

His hand slid easily from Roy's hair down his arm to begin loosening his grip enough for Ed to slip out. It took some wiggling and a few pauses to make sure that Roy wasn't about to wake, but Ed managed to get free. Then he stood next to the bed and looked down at hands that were grasping at empty sheets.

 _Idiot_ , he thought as he slid his pillow into Roy's arms and watched the octopus limbs curl around it. _My idiot_ , he corrected as he ran his fingers through Roy's hair one more time before taking a step back.

The sheet had shifted while Roy was imitating an octopus. It had fallen to hug Roy's hips in a loose, precarious way that seemed to blatantly contradict Roy's tight grip. A hint of black, just barely visible, peeked out over the top of the sheet.

Ed turned away before he could get distracted, but as he got dressed, his thoughts strayed to the black line he knew ran across the sharp edge of Roy's hipbone. Unlike Ed, Roy's line had once held words. His hip had once showed thought after scrawling thought that Roy's soulmate had had about him. Not that Ed had ever seen it. He hadn't seen Roy's hip until the words had turned back into a line. Until his soulmate had stopped having any thoughts, not just ones about Roy.

Ed wondered which was worse: having never had any words or having those words taken away. He suspected Roy had it worse. Ed didn't know what it was like to have words so he couldn't really miss it. Roy, however, had not only had words, but had realized that while he had Hughes's words, Hughes had someone else's. He'd had to keep his marks to himself so that Hughes could happily, blissfully, obliviously run to Gracia, the two of them perfectly matched the way most people were.

Maybe Ed would have been a mismatch like Roy. Maybe his soulmate didn't have his words, which was why no one had ever approached him about the thoughts written on their skin.

Or at least, maybe that's why no one approached him before. Now, no one would when they were too busy assuming that he and Roy were soulmates. They both wore enough layers that people just assumed their marks were in places that weren't usually shown. It wasn't uncommon. And no one judged their relationship or argued against it when they thought that the two were meant to be. So neither Ed, nor Roy, ever corrected the assumptions. Let everyone think the older Elric brother was just as lucky as his brother to have found his soulmate.

And as Ed, now dressed and holding his suitcase, turned back to the bed, he thought that, words or no, he was just as happy with Roy as Al was with Mei.

Roy must have moved while Ed was getting ready. He was completely twisted around the pillow now, and the sheet had fallen more, exposing Roy's pale feet to the cool air.

Just a week. A quick trip to check in on teacher and Winry, to stretch his legs a bit, and then he'd be back, ready to be held by his idiot octopus again. Roy knew how long he'd be gone. He wouldn't mind Ed not waking him. But Ed wanted more this time, wanted to leave Roy something to remember him by.

After grabbing a permanent marker off the desk, Ed sat down carefully on the bed. He'd avoid the hip, that wasn't his place, but the foot…Roy's foot was all his. Taking Roy's left foot as carefully as he could in one hand, Ed wrote a message with the other. This way Roy would know Ed was thinking about him, rooting for him, supporting him always, no matter where he was.

Leaning back, Ed looked down at the dark words written in his handwriting across Roy's foot.

 _Fuhrer yet?_

He knew if the words were real that they'd change constantly. They switch between wondering what Roy was doing, how he was doing, was he at work, drinking his coffee, missing Ed, but this was better. This would help keep Roy focused, and honestly, would just be less embarrassing. So with a grin, Ed capped the pen, tossed it onto the desk, and made his way out of the room with only one glance back.

He hoped the permanent label on the marker meant his words would last until he got back to rewrite them.


	2. Prequel

I wasn't going to add to this universe, but a review by secret25 got me thinking "how WOULD I do a prequel?" and then this happened before I'd really even thought about writing more.

It was harder to write (Idk why but I kept switched tenses and having to go back and fix it) so I'm not as confident in it, but I hope you like it. I think it turned out alright. It's just a few scenes that let to Ed and Roy getting together and becoming the couple that we see in Five More Minutes.

* * *

"If one more person talks to me about 'my soulmate' I'm gonna punch 'em."

Roy remembered these same complaints from Winry's wedding. Luckily no one at either Winry or Al's wedding felt comfortable giving _him_ advice about his love life, but poor Ed couldn't say the same. In the fifteen minutes or so Roy had been seated, he had seen no less than four partygoers ask Ed about his soulmate. All of them seemed to think he either wasn't putting enough effort into finding them or that he knew who it was and was too shy to make a move. The perils of growing up in a small town, Roy supposed. Surrounded on all sides by busybodies. At least Ed should be able to avoid this at the second ceremony Al and Mei planned to have in Xing.

"I don't think your brother would appreciate that," Roy said, as he watched Ed slouch in the chair he'd just dropped into. "You could always ask Lieutenant Hawkeye to dance. I find she's a good deterrent against annoyances."

Ed laughed. "Yeah, and when I step on her foot with my automail, I'll get to see where exactly she hid her gun in that dress. As curious as I am, I think I'll pass."

Just then the waiter came by with the two glasses of wine Roy had ordered. One had been for Riza, but she'd been gone for over ten minutes now—probably dancing with some lucky man or woman—and Ed seemed to need the drink more. Roy pushed one across the table before taking a sip from his own glass.

"Cheers," Ed said before downing the entire drink. Roy fought back a wince. "I just don't get," Ed said, "why everyone always assumes everyone else has a soulmate. And that they're their soulmate's soulmate. What about those of us who don't have a soulmate at all?"

"Cheers," Roy said this time before taking another sip of his drink.

"I mean, what am I supposed to say? If I say I don't have a soulmate, they get all pitying and shit, and just fuck that."

"I find it's best to say something mysterious, or distract them before making a tactful retreat."

That stopped Ed's tirade. He blinked, and Roy could almost hear the questions flying through Ed's brilliant mind. He must not have picked up Roy's clue earlier. Too focused on his rant, probably. But he didn't ask any questions, didn't say anything that might draw attention to the fact that he had just learned something new and significant about his old boss. He just cleared his throat.

Roy took mercy and continued the conversation himself. "Though the higher rank you are, the less people dare ask. Maybe you should consider enlisting again."

Ed let out a bark of laughter, short and mocking. "Yeah right. Over my dead body."

"Just a suggestion," Roy said, and he knew that he'd successfully steered them clear of awkward terrain. And that Ed would leave that night assuming Roy did not have, and never has had, a soulmate.

Roy didn't correct him.

* * *

With Al in Xing, Ed needed a new sparring partner. It was Roy's fault he moved to Central, so Ed figured that Roy pretty much volunteered for the job. After all, if the bastard hadn't gotten Grumman to create a new job in the military, one where Alchemists could research without being on the military's leash—less resources and funds available to them, but enough access to the books in the library to make Ed happy—then Ed wouldn't be there. He'd be traveling and probably kicking some lowlife's ass instead of Roy's.

Though Ed had to admit that the man had improved. Ed didn't have alchemy, and Roy refused to use his against Ed. It made for a decent fight. Roy wasn't as out of shape as Ed thought he'd be for someone who spent most of his day at a desk. It was almost…fun. Not that Ed would ever tell the bastard that.

It was during one of these spars that Ed saw it. They were taking a break, drinking some water in Roy's yard, when Ed saw something black over the edge of sweat pants that hung too low. He didn't say anything, but he also didn't stop staring fast enough. Roy noticed.

It was an awkward silence, where Ed tried to stare Roy down—the man had lied to him—but couldn't stop his eyes from drifting down to the bastard's hips. The black didn't look like words, but Ed couldn't see enough to be sure.

"It was Hughes." The soft words break the silence.

That doesn't make sense. How…? "But he…"

"Gracia was his, and he was hers."

Damn. Roy was a mismatch.

Ed had heard stories about people not matching with their soulmate, but he'd never met one. They always seemed like an unlikely, mostly theoretical, anomaly. Something Ed had heard about, but never given much thought too. Only now he can see how painful that would be.

He wouldn't say sorry. Roy didn't tell him this for pity. But his default response when unsure near the bastard wasn't much better. "So you thought you'd lie to me, bastard?" Anger.

Roy sounded a little irritated then. "Should I have shared my life story with you?"

"Maybe," Ed said, still loud and fierce. Then quieter, and he had no idea why he added it, dammit what was wrong with his mouth, "I'd read that book."

There was a pause. Of course there was because what the fuck is someone supposed to say to an abrupt change like that. He was so stupid. But then he added, as if trying to make it worse by over sharing, "Mine was on my foot." He stamped his automail against the ground, like Roy wouldn't know what foot he might talk about in the past tense. "It was blank when I lost it."

Roy didn't say sorry either. They seem to be all about defying expectation today. Instead, he said, "Their loss."

* * *

Dinner at Roy's was a monthly thing—his way of making sure Ed was eating something besides take out at least every once in a while—and then it was a weekly thing, and then it was nearly every night. It was odd at first, seeing as Roy didn't have company very often, but it wasn't long before Ed became part of his house. Someone Roy expected to be there, and liked having around. After dinner they'd taken to spending time together in the living room—reading, researching, arguing alchemy, arguing politics, arguing anything really.

One night, months after Ed's moved to Central, weeks after he'd begun to spend every night eating Roy's food, they sat on the couch, reading by firelight and listening to the radio. The program started talking about some celebrity that had found their soulmate. Nothing unusual as far as gossip went, but it caught Roy's attention. Ed's feet had been slowly burrowing their way under Roy's thigh for the last few minutes, but the automail wasn't cold enough to make him complain. No, he was focused on Ed's foot for a different reason.

"Where on your foot?" he asked before he realized he might need to be more specific.

However, Ed answered almost immediately. Maybe the radio had driven their thoughts in the same direction. "The top. Right under my toes," he leaned over and pointed to a spot on his foot, "Here."

"Hmm," is all Roy said, but his attention didn't drift from Ed's feet. Even before he snatched Ed's foot and drew it onto his lap, he could feel Ed's attention on him. Any decent alchemist always had chalk within reach, and Roy was no exception. He pulled a stick out and wrote right where Ed pointed on the automail.

 _Would he say yes?_

"Yes to what?" Ed asked, voice quiet and so unlike himself.

"Dinner," Roy said simply before giving Ed an expectant look.

"We just had dinner, idiot." His voice is stronger now, making everything harder than it needs to be, as usual.

"I thought we might go out next time," Roy said, not letting Ed throw them off track.

There was a pause, a silence, and it took Roy more effort than he'd care to admit not to let on how nervous he was as he stared at Ed, waiting for him to answer.

"…You paying?"

That got Roy to smirk. It almost even made him laugh. "Of course."

A much shorter pause this time, followed by a sharp grin and, "Then count me in."


End file.
